This shot was taken in the new wing of the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA). I was drawn to this shot by all the lines. I just liked the way the railings around the staircase looked against the lines for the window frames in the background. It has a very mide-century modern feeling, even though the building was completed last year. In looking at the shot now, I think it would look better with a person sitting on the bench, maybe about 1/3 of the way in from the right side of the image. I think a person would add a nice ‘organic’ element to the strong geometric nature of the shot. I’m curious as to what other people might thing.

I took a short trip into Detroit to try out my new camera and a rental lens. I decided to get some more shots of the abandoned Detroit Central Railway Station (or Depot). The building has been abandoned for several years, but the beauty of the structure remains. I certainly hope that something can be done to save a least a portion of this building.

I recently purchased a Nikon D700 camera to ultimately replace my Olympus E-3. I loved my E-3, but there were certain features that were lacking and Olympus seems more interested in developing their micro 4/3rds cameras than releasing newer pro level cameras so it seemed time to make a switch. I received the D700 yesterday and managed to find a little time to take a few shots with it. I still have a lot to learn about how I want to configure the camera and how to best make use of it, but I think I’ve got the basics.

A few weeks ago my wife and I went to an exhibit at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) called The Lens of Impressionism – Photography and Painting Along the Normandy Coast, 1850–1874. It was a great exhibition. Before the exhibit, I wandered around the museum. The museum consists of two wings, an old wing housed in a Beaux Arts style structure, and a new wing which was recently completed in a very modern style (seen here). My main focus was on the architecture and I took several interior shots. In general I’m not much of a ‘people’ photographer. I’ll wait until people are out of frame before taking pictures, particularly architecture. However, there are times when having the person in the right place makes the shot and I think this is one of those times.

This image shows Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The company I work for recently moved to a new office and we wanted some images from around town to adorn our walls. Since we all enjoy Zingerman’s food, we named one of our conference rooms “Zingerman’s”. A print of this picture now adorns the wall of that conference room.

It’s been a rough couple of years for the University of Michigan football program, but one of the things which is headed in the right direction is completion of modifications to Michigan Stadium. While I still preferred the stadium when it had a lower profile, I’m getting used to the new look. This shot shows the entrance to ‘Champions Plaza’, which is the main entrance to Michigan Stadium. Each corner of the stadium has a special plaza with customized bricks which have been purchased by fans and alumni as part of a fund raising effort. These plazas were actually built before the current stadium expansion plan.

This image shows ‘Untitled Vessel’ a fine art piece by Ray Allen, on display at the University of Michigan Museum of Art. I took this shot with my ultra-wide angle lens and I just liked the way the piece looked in the museum light. The raw image was rather dark, but I was able to brighten it considerably in Adobe Lightroom. I was able to use a combination of fill light and blacks to brighten the front of the piece which was rather dark in the raw image. I used Topaz Simplify on the background to give it less detail and to keep the focus on the artwork.

I was walking through Nickels Arcade recently and noticed this storefront. I just thought this was an interesting collection of ‘stuff’. Image processing mostly consisted of added a bit more contrast to bring out the features of the toys.

This image comes from the old wing of the University of Michigan Museum of Art. I was visiting the museum to see the Lens of Impressionism exhibit and managed to take several interior shots of the museum while I was waiting for other people in my party to arrive. This image shows the main staircase in the old wing of the museum. I shot this from the bottom floor looking up toward the top of the building.

After having taken several pictures of the exterior of the University of Michigan Museum of Art over time, I decided to take my camera inside to take some interior photography. At the same time, my wife and I took in an exhibition called The Lens of Impressionism. The exhibition was quite interesting. It was a collection of photographs and paintings from the mid to late 1800’s and it showed the effect that photography had on impressionist painting. The photography was amazing. The clarity of some of the images was truly stunning. Anyway, this has nothing to do with the image above!